The mitten of extreme awkwardness

This week I have almost been defeated by a mitten, almost but not quite. I think I might be winning now.

On the needles:

Aforementioned mitten is on the needles. Still. After appearing in here for several weeks and despite being no more than a small mitten, in theory the work of a couple of evenings.

I am starting to get the feeling this yarn does not wish to be a mitten:

• First I ran out of thrum fluff and hibernated the project for a while (ahem, about three years).
• Having made up my mind to finsih the pair I couldn't find the pattern. Fine, I think, I have the first mitten I can reverse engineer it.
• So I made the mitten all the way to the top, looked at it and realised it didn't match the first one. No, there should be five rows between thrums, not three. (I actually don't know how I didn't realise this earlier on). RIPPPPPP all the way out. I should tell you, ripping thrums out is not so easy.
• Restart the cuff, knit happily away, finish the cuff and realise it is meant to be K2P2 not K1P1. RIPPPPPPP.
• Ok, work the cuff (again), things are going ok, merrily thrum away. Get carried away and work past the point for te thumb gusset starting. Unpicked stitches for a few rows this time.
• Gusset flies along, error of counting means I stop it too early. Unpick a couple of rows again and work more thumb gusset. 

Which brings us to here. I am almost at the decreases for the top, then "just" the thumb to work and I will finally have beaten the mitten challenge.

I really hope there is some cold weather so I can actually wear these once they are done.

I did do a little casting on as a gift was needed. I used some of the spare mitten yarn to start some Garter Stitch Mitts by Ysolda Teague. A simple but excellent pattern for whipping up mitts in leftover yarn. 

Also a chance to reacquaint myself with grafting garter stitch. I worked it a little tightly on this one. The second mitt will be worked once the mitten is done and I know how much yarn I have left.

The Touch the sky cardigan continues, it has had about four more rows put on it. I really must dedicate a week'd knitting to get it done at some point.

There is a non knitting WIP this week as well. I made some felt slippers last week (you can see the photos of the whole process on my facebook page).

The felting is done but I need to add a sole and maybe a little decoration.

Off the needles:

Once I had made the first garter stitch mitt i decided it wouldn't be right for the gift I had in mind. Wrong colour for the recipient. I had a little stash dive and used some green Debbie Bliss Donegal luxury Tweed Aran to make a green pair.

Much more suitable.

I did a few tweaks to make the pattern in aran weight yarn, you can find them here.

Other news:

Couldn't work out what heading to put this under, but quite exciting anyway. I taught my first fibre class this week. I took a lovely little group of ladies through a little fibre background and showed them the basics of spinning, needle felting, wet felting and peg loom weaving. It was a fun day with more like it to come in the future.

And some other bits from my week:

Some alpacas from work to keep you amused.

The weather has taken a serious autumnal turn this week, it is grey and wet out there. The good side of this is that we had our first fire of the season. I love knitting with the stove going.